Andy Scores! Vol 3 - Part 3/4: Life's a Blast
Chapman faces a tough decision. The move to Baltimore brings financial benefits. And Andy learns he definitely will NOT have a second career in the medical field.
To read Parts 1 and 2 of Volume 3, click here and here.
To read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Volume 2, click here, here, and here.
To read Volume 1, published back in April, become a subscriber (only $7.99 a month!) by clicking above. Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2 of Volume 1.
The following is Andy Chapman in his own words:
“So that summer, Pattie spent a lot of time up in Detroit and me and Keith Furphy did summer soccer camps all day and were able to make pretty good money. Not what we should have been getting, but I was able to pay the bills and now I was looking to sign a new contract with a new team. Because out of principle, I wasn’t going to sign with Cleveland. I was young and sort of stubborn, and said, ‘Fuck them.’ They are meant to be paying me that and are asking me to come back making 30% less. So, just out of principle, I told myself I’m leaving there. So, basically, I was waiting for a phone call.
The offer that I got, probably in July, was from Alan Merrick, the coach of the Minnesota Strikers. He offered me $65,000 for a season. Based on what I was supposed to be making, I was like, ‘Fuck me.’ But I was in conversation with a lot of the players and everybody was taking a big haircut that year. I wasn’t happy about it. Pattie was pregnant, due in October. Merrick sounded like a good coach and over the phone, I said I would agree to the contract. And they sent it to me. I said to Pattie, ‘We are going to Minnesota, but for a lot less money.’
The contract arrived and I went over it and it was fine. That day, I was looking at it, up in Detroit at Pattie’s parents, and Kenny Cooper called me. Cooper said, ‘I want to sign you.’ And he’s big buddies with Roy [Turner], Kenny was. And I said, ‘I can't, Kenny, I’ve already agreed to terms with Alan Merrick.’ He said, ‘Well, have you shook hands on the deal?’ And I said, ‘How could I have, he’s in fucking Minnesota.’ So he said, ‘You owe it to yourself and your family [to consider my offer].’
The bottom line is, he gave me $15,000 more and a two-year contract. Me and Pattie had no insurance at the time. So I told Kenny we’re having a child, so I need insurance. He told me not to worry, that they’d take care of everything and get insurance for me and Pattie. ‘We want you bad,’ he said. So I said, ‘Yeah, alright, then I’m coming.’
Alan Merrick never spoke to me again. I didn’t know him very well, but he was really pissed. He had to go over to England and he signed Steve Kinsey from Manchester City. I saw Steve a year ago; he lives down in Florida, and he comes up to Naples and we went out. I’ve become friends with Steve. The only reason he got to come to America was because I didn’t follow through on a contract to come to Minnesota.
In Cleveland you had to go to Lamaze classes if you wanted to be in the birthing room. Well, old school, back in the day, no father used to go into the room when their wife was giving birth to a baby. My mom was born at home. It was only when you got into the 1950s and ‘60s that you went into hospital to have a baby. Call The Midwife was set in my neighborhood.
Things started to change, where men were going in and watching the birth of their children. I was a little bit nervous of all that. So when we were in Cleveland, I never did the Lamaze classes. So I go to Baltimore and Kenny Cooper gets the team doctor, who was a doctor at a beautiful hospital around the corner. It was an incredible experience.
I said to the doctor, ‘Listen, I haven’t been to Lamaze classes, so I can’t go into the room, can I?’ And he said, ‘Oh no, no, no, forget about that. We don’t care about that. You are going in.’ That weren’t really the answer I was looking for [laughs]. So on October 30, at about 10 pm, my wife’s water broke and I drove her to the hospital. She had a private room. They really took care of us. The staff knew I played for Baltimore.
I was very nervous and it got into the early hours of the morning. The doctor said to me, ‘Can you help the nurse put an epidural in your wife’s back?’ I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ She was lying on her side, and I’m holding her. I see this needle going in. And I’m thinking, ‘Where the fuck is that going?’ It was so big. That’s the last thing I remember. I passed out and crashed to the floor. I woke up and had no clue where I was. I had never passed out before and haven’t since. They sat me in a chair and the nurses were fussing over me. And Pattie was pissed. She’s like, ‘Don’t worry about him; there’s me here.’
I just sat there and all the wind had been taken out of my sails. Then there was a knock at the door. There was this doctor and he had three students with him from Johns Hopkins. They asked Pattie [laughs] if she’d mind if they came in to watch the birth. If you can believe this. And she said, ‘I’d give birth in the middle of Tiger Stadium right now; I just want to get this over with. I don’t care who’s watching.’
I sat where I was close to the foot of the bed. I can see the three students are looking at the doctor. Lily is about to be born. I can see the expressions on their faces. It looked like it was the first time they’d ever seen it. At 6am that morning, Lily was born. She was healthy and everything was good. At 8am, I had a radio interview I had to do and after that, I went to practice.”
Next Week: The Grand Finale of the Andy Scores! series…